Hey guys! New to the archive of Inside Out, but I loved the movie and after reading a lot of Fanfic's here, I liked the Joy and Fear pairing (plus they are really cute together), but I also liked some of the other stories here (but there was one that made my Disgust puke and my Anger rage over how horrible it was). However, while I do approve of the pairing, I don't want to put a problem so that they kiss it out at the end (it's good, but its too quick and makes me wish there was more impact leading up to it), so i want to try different displays of affection and actions.

I also want to create a series of one-shots. This is one of them.

The first few are mine, but I'm curious as to what you guys want to see, so leave a suggestion in the review!

Without further ado, here it is.

Having A Nightmare

This week was a long and stressful time for a certain girl named Riley.

After the fiasco of 'running away,' her parents did ground her for doing something so reckless, but it was to not only teach her a lesson, but because they loved her and would never want her to pull something like that ever again.

While she respected it, they took phone and laptop privileges away and made her spend more time with her parents as a way of healing and getting use to San Francisco.

But after getting back in routine with her parents during the weekend, going back to school was an even more tougher job when a few of her teachers would question her about what happened, but they were smart enough to not say it in front of the kids, or else she would be the center of attention.

And Riley didn't need that right now.

Having 'skipped' school when she did it, Riley now had more work to do and would have to sacrifice the weekend game to complete it all. It was completely unfair, but she needed to set things right after what she did.

After eating dinner and working late into the night, the 12-year-old closed her homework for the time being and went to bed. Thankfully, it was also Saturday tomorrow, so she had more time to do it. Riley was just so used to doing it then and there to get it out of the way.

After waiting for a while, when her eyes started to feel heavy, her mother came in to check up on her, but smiled in seeing how Riley is already in bed. Kissing Riley goodnight and sweet dreams, Ms. Anderson turned the light off and closed the door.

Soon, exhaustion from all the work consumed her, and her vision soon closed...

The emotions themselves, the ones in Riley's Mind, were having a long and stressful week themselves.

Dealing with being grounded, talking to teachers, getting more work, forced to miss hockey, and the fact that all the concentration made the console feel slightly hot, almost due to the fact that Riley was about to have a headache if she stayed up any later doing homework.

It was Fear who stopped Riley, for he didn't want her to have trouble sleeping or else they all would be forced to stay up.

At the helm, Joy was also tired, exhausted by how much she had to help Riley catch up on. Her hands and arms have been aching from the repeated pressing of buttons, twisting of knobs, and the pulling and pushing of levers to do the work. Some memories helped ease the push to do the work, but it didn't soften the blow.

After finally seeing Riley go into REM, Joy gave a relieving and exhausted sigh as she turned around to see her friends.

Sadness was with her to do the work too, for Riley had to feel slightly disappointed in herself to end up in this situation, but she quickly left for a Mind Manual around the subject of an overheated console (a.k.a. headaches and/or migraines) while sitting to a couch on the left and was looking at how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Disgust and Anger were talking to one another about the time at school. On Disgust's part, she was on the topic of how the other kids affected Riley and how she needed to make a friend or else she would be seen as a 'loner,' which will make it a permanent mark on Riley to never be willingly encountered by other kids. She took the helm during the school days to fix Riley's appearance and on how to approach people on a more social level.

On Angers part, it was extremely difficult to keep his frustrations inside. But it was the entire groups decision to keep Anger away from the console for the time being, seeing how making her angry wouldn't improve her situation. Anger would say that what Riley is going through and what he is going through is unfair. But after doing what he thought was right, he also knew he was wrong in the matter and needed a 'chill pill', as Disgust lightly put it. Still, Anger was still frustrated by the irony overall.

Fear, who was sitting on the couch on the right, looked just as tired as Joy. He has been keeping tabs on everything Riley is doing so that she can stay safe and slowly get out of the trouble she was in. Dealing with the punishment given by Riley's parents and the homework that she needed to do was talking its toll on the baggy-eyed nerve. In his hands, he held a cup of mint tea, his favorite, to reduce his stress so that he can sleep tonight.

Shaking her head, she decided that she'll take dream duty and said, "Alright! Riley's finally asleep! I got dream duty and will be sending the memories to long term. Get day today guys! Get some shut-eye, you all deserve it!"

When Joy pressed the step on the floor to send the memories they created to Long Term, Sadness looked up and said, "Joy, that's a bad idea. You look very tired from being at the console all day."

Joy, being the optimist of the group and being a little stubborn at times, smiled to Sadness and said, "I'm fine Sadness. Get some rest, okay? As soon as we're out of this mess with Riley, the sooner we can kick back a little bit and take it easy on the console."

Sadness looked unsure, but nodded and said, "Alright."

As she went to return the mind manual, Disgust said to Joy with Anger next to her, "We trust you, but don't go to hard on yourself. Let one of us know if you're too tired and we'll come down."

Anger crossed his arms and warned, "If I see you passed out, you won't be on dream duty for a while."

Joy dismissed him with a wave of her hand and said, "Thanks guys, but I'll be fine."

As they walked to their rooms, Joy turned to see Fear behind her, his cup almost empty.

Fear can be many things; scared, weak, sensitive, and maybe even cowardly, but his job was keeping Riley safe from all sorts of things, like being sleep deprived.

It didn't take a genius to see that Joy was suffering from the same symptoms. Fear saw Joy work all day, her arms hung loosely by her sides, her back was a little hunched, she had little bags under her eyes, and her glow was less dimmer than normal.

Of course, Fear could make her go to sleep, but not only did he not like telling people what to do (guiding is the preferred term he would use), but he was also afraid to let Joy continue on doing what she was doing.

Fear especially cared about Joy too, he just hasn't had to courage to say it. He cared about keeping Riley safe, but it was also his job to make Joy and the others be safe as well, for Riley's sake.

But Fear didn't have it in his heart to 'boss' her around, even if it was for her own good, because he cared about Riley and everyone else at HQ.

Why? Because he was afraid of the reaction. And being Fear, he was never 'courageous' enough to do something so out of character. Fear didn't get why people shorten words like those, calling them "o-o-c" or something, but that didn't matter.

So he made a decision. Fear smiled and said, "If you can't do it tonight, let me do it. Besides, Riley might have a boring dream after all we did today."

That did the trick, for Joy pulled a bright smile and gave a light-hearted laugh at Fear's joke. After getting a grip, she smiled and glowed brighter, and said, "Thanks Fear. I'll let you know if I can't pull through tonight."

Fear gave a nod in understanding, his antenna making a back-looped shape due to how tired he felt, and so he bid Joy goodnight and left.

Joy hopped to the console, which cooled down, and watched as music played and the dream began.

However, the dream was a lot more interesting than she thought.

Riley had a pencil as a sword and a big eraser as a shield, her body covered in paper armor that had notes of geometry all over it. Her quest was to climb Textbook Mountain to find the Scroll of Answers, the key to stopping the evil force known as Homework from melting the minds of children. She fought four-legged Pencil Sharpeners, giant Chairs with Desk shields and crossbows with pen arrows. Riley had slingshots with pebbles and spit straws to attack as well. She stormed through the infinite Hallway and had to evade the storm known as the Hall Monitor, needing to steal the Hall Pass as the key to escaping. Riley escaped drowning in the bathroom while fighting the 9-headed toilet paper Hydra. After solving Equation Riddles and drinking from the Healing Water Fountain was she ready to face the guarding dragon known as The Teacher that breaths Lectures Of Fire.

This was the most awesome movie Joy has seen in so long! She was certain this was going to be a big blockbuster on the Mind Reader tomorrow. Anger would scruff over it to the others, she can already imagine it.

But after some time, Joy's eyelids started feeling heavy, making it harder to concentrate on the dream, but soon she found herself slouching, then the entire world slowly went dark.

Slowly, Joy awoke to Riley being already awake.

She froze. Did she sleep during her dream? What did she miss? What did Riley do when she awoke? Where are the others?!

She didn't look at the monitor but instead turned around and searched their rooms, but she couldn't find them anywhere, only to go back down to see through the eyes of Riley.

Only did she realize that Riley was on a bus, trees passed by with no city in sight but highway.

Joy's heart started accreting to that of a humming bird. How is this possible?! Joy thought as she panicked

She sprinted to the console and started pressing keys and knobs and levers to stop her, but Riley wasn't reacting to Joy.

Looking down, her heart got lodged in her throat.

The entire console was dark and broken, not responding to her commands, with a glowing lightbulb that was inside it's port.

Panicking, she pulled and twisted with all her might to make the bulb come off, but it wasn't working, like it was stuck with glue.

Becoming desperate, she ran to the shelves of the Mind Manuals, hoping to find an answer.

She searched, only to find that the shelves without Mind Manuals and covered in dust. the entire walls and flower gears were not purple but grey with no memories lining the walls.

Her heart started beating in her temple, panic setting in at the corners of her mind in all directions.

Then she only had one thought;

Widening her eyes, she shouted, "THE CORE MEMORIES!"

Running, she immediately pressed the pad on the floor and literally couldn't wait as she pulled it up, nearly breaking the gears.

She had a heart attack.

The core memories were completely faded. Joy could barely see the memories inside them.

As if exposed to the air, the core memories turned to dust, hitting Joy in all directions, covering her in grey matter.

Looking down at herself, covered in the remains of Riley's memories, she had trouble breathing as the world around her started feeling dizzy.

Joy felt nauseous. Like she was going to faint and puke at the same time.

Before she could fall, she ran to the slightly dust-covered windows and placed her hands on the glass as she looked outside.

The sky was dead grey, the memories in longterm had color, but were slightly faded from not being used. Joy didn't see any mind workers down there, no Train of Thought, no lights from Dream Productions, and no islands.

It was like Riley's Mind was shutting down.

Slowly, Joy began to realize that she must be the only one left in Riley's Mind. Where did all the mind workers go? Did the other's fade? Closing her eyes and leaning her back against the glass, Joy tried to get a grip, "This isn't real. This isn't right. It's only a dr-"

The glass aged so much, it shattered under Joy's weight, making her eyes widen as she tripped outside into the air...

...and shrieked as she fell into the dump.

After what seemed like an eternity of falling into darkness, just like before, did she hit the ground hard.

Only it wasn't the ground, but the still fading memories of Riley's past, her happy giggles and cheers echoing the dump endlessly as they turn to dust.

Hurt all over and pain flaring as she moved, Joy got up and then looked up, seeing how the only light in this dark abyss was the grey sky and her very glow.

Joy realized, then and there...

...that she was alone...

...Riley has forgotten her once more...

...Her hands felt weird and so Joy looked down at them...

...And saw her glow began to dim...

...Her sunshine skin began to turn dull and grey...

...Her body felt tired and aching...

...Joy panicked as she felt her hair thin and fall to lie down instead of standing upright, turning an ashy white...

...Her bright green dress began to dull into a more hollow color...

...And her vision started blurring, making the light harder to see-

Suddenly, something grabbed and wrapped around her feet, deep under the decaying memories.

And it was a pink trunk.

The instant she saw it, it began to drag her down under the decaying orbs. Adrenaline began to kick in as she kept yelling "NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!" while kicking to escape and clawing at the memories to get a grip, but the nose was dragging her deep into the fading orbs as her fingers simply glided across the dead spheres like water.

Her entire body began to hurt from the pressure of orbs crushing her sides, squeezing her like it was trying to eat her.

Before she could be fully submerged was when she heard cracking, then seeing HQ, her home, come tumbling down into the dump.

Joy could only let out one more scream as the complex came crashing down on her-

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Joy screamed as she bolted upright, heart thudding against her chest like a drum, breathing heavily and feeling hot all over.

After a moment of shock, she slowly began to take it in that she was still in HQ.

She was still at home.

Not in the dump.

And Riley was still asleep, the dream having been turned off long ago. There was no grayness to the walls, no blackened console, no glowing lightbulb; everything was as it was.

Realizing that it was all a dream, a terrible nightmare, did she close her eyes and put her hands in her face, feeling like she was about to cry from seeing such horror.

After getting a grip, she knew that she shouldn't have taken dream duty and slept in her room. If only she listened to the others than she wouldn't be in this situ-

"You okay?"

"AHH!" Joy screamed again, grabbing a pillow and then quickly hitting something with her eyes closed.

At the rough impact, Joy heard a loud 'ouf' and then heard a falling 'thud'.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and got up, using a pillow to protect herself like a weapon, and then went around the couch to realize that she knocked someone out.

At first, it was complete darkness, but then the light seeped in, and so he felt an ice pack against the side of his face as he slowly became conscious again.

He then heard the voice of Joy say to his right, "I am soooo sorry I knocked you out."

Joy watched with a worried look as Fear turned to face Joy, with he himself having to give a worried glance to Joy.

Before he did anything, he held the ice pack against himself, freeing Joy the duty to hold it, and asked, "You knocked me out?"

Then he realized what she said a moment ago as he said, "You knocked me out."

Looking at her out of fright, Fear asked, "Why did you knock me out?"

Joy gave a light blush at how embarrassing this was; Joy attacked Fear in fright. And now he has a bruise on the side of his face.

She began, "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to do it, I was just startled."

Fear looked to her and gave an sympathetic look, knowing what it was like to be startled, and then looked away due to the pain at the angle of his neck. After a minute of silence, letting the bruise slightly heal, Fear decided he should continue where he left off before his lights were knocked out.

"I heard you screaming. Did something happen?" Fear began

Joy was now really blushing, then she looked away in embarrassment. She realized that her scream must of woken him up.

But it made sense, considering his room was the closest to the rest of HQ, and checking up on her made him get injured.

Since Joy got herself and Fear in this situation, she looked down in embarrassment and shyly explained, "I had a nightmare."

Realizing what was with the scream, and knowing it wasn't the dream she saw, but the dream she had, Fear honestly didn't know how to approach this. Joy then looked away from Fear, hiding her face from his view.

When Fear had a nightmare, he would go back to sleep with his old teddy bear, or write it in his journal if it was that bad. But what disturbed him was seeing Joy, the happiest person he ever knew, looked shaken from having a nightmare and about to cry.

It's like saying Fear can be courageous enough to go to the Subconscious and beat up Jangles.

Taking a shot in the dark (even though he is afraid of it), Fear said, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

He saw Joy's shoulder's shake a little and gave a weak and almost unheard sob. Slowly, she turned around to see Fear, the comers of her eyes watered with tears.

Before he can react, she buried her face in his sweater and cried her heart out, making Fear look to her with wide eyes.

Joy was crying.

It was like his entire world shattered. He never saw-no-he would never imagine that Joy would cry, because she was always bubbly, happy, and very optimistic.

He didn't know that any emotion besides Sadness could feel sad at all by this.

But seeing how she was slightly affected by the nightmare, it sort of matched his 'field of experience' on how to handle this, even though this was also something he never did before.

Comforting was more of Sadness's job, but she wasn't here. So he slowly, but cautiously, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back and patting it like some parent soothing a child.

After a minute, Joy's sobs lowered as she got upright to see Fear and said, "It was horrible Fear. I was the only one in HQ, and..."

Joy told Fear every moment she experienced in that dream, which made Fear feel the same way. If he had that dream, he would of tired to make himself as small as possible and hide in some corner of his room.

But this was Joy, and for now, she needed Fear, because no one understood what being afraid is like more than him.

After hearing her dilemma, Joy looked like she was going to cry again.

Only this time, Joy saw Fear get a little closer and took out a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her.

Touched by how gentle he was treating her, she gratefully took it and wiped her eyes.

When she was done, Fear made her lie down on the couch, his lap to act like a pillow for her head.

Fear felt uneasy but it also felt right. It was a strange feeling, but being unknown to it, he was naturally afraid of it.

And at the same time, he wasn't.

And he liked it.

And most importantly, he liked sharing it with Joy.

Fear placed his ice pack down and ran his cold hand through Joy's hair to soothe her, and he felt her begin to relax under his touch, her shaking breath turned into steady breathing and she relaxingly closed her eyes, focusing and enjoying the sensation.

Fear began, "I'm sorry that you had that dream. I would of been scared if I had the same one too."

Fear then removed his hand from her hair and snaked it into her own hand and gave it a squeeze in comfort. Joy smiled and squeezed it back.

Fear then said soothingly, "I'll be right here. I'm not gonna go anywhere until you feel better."

Fear eyes sparked over the reflection of Joy's ever-brighter glow at Fears words. It was like Joy was a bright star, a sun, to warm Fear's over-beating heart. Joy herself felt her heart flutter at how gentle he was treating her; Joy was also impressed, for she never saw this side of him, being a true gentlemen.

With his other hand, Joy enjoyed the comforting sensation of Fear running his hand through her hair once more and the warmth of Fear legs as a pillow, making the position she was in more comfy.

The nightmare Joy had left her mind like water as sleep came again, this time with the presence of someone she cared about.

The first thing Joy felt was warmth surrounding her entire body.

It was pleasant, like she was in a cocoon. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see the console, manned by Sadness, Disgust, and Anger. At the moment, they weren't interacting with Riley, for she had no reason to be disgusted, angry, or sad over eating her cereal, for her morning started off great.

Looking down, she realized that her blanket was wrapped under and around her, having been tucked in and around the edges of her body to keep her warm. The couch pillow replaced the legs of someone that helped her last night.

Sadness looked over and was the first to notice Joy get up with a very restful expression on her face as she got up from her blanket-wrapped warmth and stretched her arms and back, "Joy's awake."

Disgust turned around with Anger and said, "Finally! Joy, Riley had a nice morning and is eating her favorite cereal. She needs to feel happy right now."

Joy looked over and smiled, her glow a whole lot brighter, as they usually saw when it came to Riley.

But this was for a whole different reason.

Joy got out of her cocoon and basically hopped into the air with a beaming smile on her face, shouting, "Good morning everybody! What did I miss?", before landing next to the console and pressing a button, making Riley's mouthful of cereal turn into a small pleasant smile as she was supposed to feel happy with her morning. Plus her mom made her favorite cereal.

Seeing that Joy finally manned the console and having been caught up that Riley was having a great morning due to her dream, Disgust left to go to the bathroom, apparently needing to fix something with her makeup. Anger went to the couch, looking at the Mind Reader over the review of Riley's newest hit, "The Search For Answers", and was engrossed in the latest article. Sadness went to the back for the Mind Manual she was reading earlier, looking up on how to recent the console from heating up again.

Joy leaned against the console on her elbows, holding her face in her hands with a smile on her face, her focus fazed from reminiscing the event that happened last night.

Then a thought crossed her mind; Joy thought, Where's Fe-

"I see someones finally up."

Joy was a little startled, but had a small blush at seeing Fear with a smile on his face, a cup of coffee in hand. He eyes looked a little baggy, but he also looked rested enough to continue working. His bruise on the side of his face was barely noticeable, but because of his purple color, it was like it was never there.

Immediately, Joy hugged Him, careful of the coffee that was in his hand, and squeezed hard.

It was unexpected, but Fear immediately reacted to not spill the coffee on Joy, which was his first thought was for her sake rather than his own. Then he used one arm to hug back.

Joy pulled away, seeing Fear shake a little and give a small chuckle, saying afterwards, "When everyone else found you there, I told them that you were too tired to continue so you got me to come down. Just so you know, Anger now's gonna-"

What came next was unexpected.

Joy then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, interrupting him. She gave a small blush and a light giggle at Fears stupefied reaction and said, "Thank you for last night. I really appreciate it."

To say Fear's heart fluttered was an understatement. It felt like it was gonna fly out of his throat.

Yes, to Fear, her happiness was that contagious. Simply being in radius of her glow made you wanna smile.

Giving off a goofy smile himself, Fear stuttered, "Y-yeah, n-no problem at-all."

With a heartfelt smile, Joy tuned back to the monitor to see Riley put her empty bowl away and went on her laptop to finish the last of her homework.

Joy felt the presence of Fear next to her, ready to aid both Riley and Joy in any situation.

Joy realized that if she ever needed to cry, Sadness would be there with open arms.

If she felt unsure of what people thought, Disgust would always give advice.

If she ever got angry at how something is preventing from making Riley happy, Anger would be there with a chair at hand to slam the console.

And most importantly, if Joy ever felt scared, she knew she would always feel safe in Fears embrace and give comforting words.

Joy thought to herself, It's weird how a little empathy can make you see people differently.

While Anger found her sleeping on the couch, he kept his word that Joy wasn't going to do Dream Duty anytime soon.

Joy was okay with that, for that mean't she get to spend more time with Fear.

And as long as Joy was next to Fear, she knew that she won't have any more nightmares.

That's it! Btw, the nightmare was simpler to the one in Toy Story 2 (Pixar references for the win!). Hope you liked it! Be sure to leave a review, subscribe to me through following/favoriting, and thanks for reading Fans!

Till' next time!